Find a story
9 stories
Add the stories you want to your picks as you browse, then build
a newsletter or farbrengen sheet from them.
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 492-494, no. 14
A member of Anash phoned R. Eliyahu's house asking Mrs. Lipskar to host a family arriving in Toronto with nowhere to stay; things were difficult for her then and she did not answer at once, but when the husband himself called the next day from the road, travelling with his wife and small baby, she gave him her address and prepared her home. After they had rested she asked about their origins, and the guest, whose family name meant nothing to her, said his grandfather was Yisroel Konson of Leningrad and Tashkent — the R. Yisroel Konson who had risked his health to help her and her husband when they hovered between life and death. She was left speechless, and all who heard of the meeting were astounded by the Divine providence; the Lipskars then attended to the family's every need and offered them loans to buy a home in Toronto, so she was finally able to repay a debt that had weighed on her for years.
3 min to tellexcellent to tell
427 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000673
score 1.41 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.82
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 429-430, no. 21
R. Zalman's poverty was dreadful -- when Chaya Grunya pointed out that their chairs were so battered it was an embarrassment to have them around, he could only suggest moving them to a room where they would not be seen -- yet he never hesitated to bring guests home, and his tiny apartment had a partition set up to make a sleeping area for them. Every Shabbos after davening he brought home the most unfortunate individuals; when his wife wondered whether there were any normal guests needing a meal, he explained that by the time he finished davening the shul was empty and only these people remained. One day a Yid came needing a place to stay, and R. Zalman gave him his own "private quarters" while the family crowded into the other cordoned area; in the middle of the night loud moaning was heard from behind the curtain and R. Zalman watched over him the whole night. The family later realized the man suffered from epilepsy and that R. Zalman had placed him apart so as to spare embarrassment, and his children took on the same extraordinary kindness -- sharing their food with guests and giving away their own beds while they slept on the floor in a corner.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
280 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000577
score 1.27 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.55
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 478-479, no. 24
After a weekday farbrengen of the Rebbe, bochurim gathered with R. Yoel Kahan, the Rebbe's chozer, whose office was then in R. Yisroel's basement, to review the farbrengen, and afterward began an informal farbrengen of their own. R. Yisroel brought down mashkeh along with frankfurters and cold cuts from his butcher store, and the hungry bochurim ate heartily while R. Yoel explained how the Rebbe was giving them a foretaste of Toraso shel Moshiach. R. Yisroel looked at them and remarked, "M'est frankfurters un m'redt zich veggen Moshiach" — "You're eating frankfurters and you're speaking about Moshiach." The story explains the double meaning: a critique from a generation that held spirituality and material desire could not be mixed, and at the same time an awareness that a new light was dawning in which the material and the spiritual would no longer contradict, their fusion complete with Moshiach's coming.
2 min to tellexcellent to tell
252 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000658
score 1.24 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.47
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 472-473, no. 13
R. Yisroel Duchman told the Rebbe that guests unfamiliar with the chassidic lifestyle were visiting for Simchas Torah, and that his wife, worried about the impression they would form of him, had advised him to restrain himself. The Rebbe responded, "Du zolst nispael veren fun zei?! Zei zol nispael veren fun dir! — You be impacted by them?! Let them be impacted by you!"
1 min to tellexcellent to tell
72 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000647
score 1.07 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=1.00 length_suitability=0.15
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 491-492, no. 12
R. Eliyahu kept an open house for anyone who needed a place to stay. In 5715 (1955), some years after he arrived in Toronto, his own family still lived in a small dwelling where all five of his children slept in one small room. When a large Moroccan family arrived in Toronto on the eve of Pesach and the shul's rov urged the community to take them in, nobody responded; R. Eliyahu alone took the family of seven into his home for the entire festival and made sure they lacked nothing.
2 min to tellvery good to tell
201 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000671
score 0.99 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.38
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 468-469, no. 3
The Rubashkin family of Nevel were known for exceptional hachnosas orchim; Shalom Rubashkin would buy a whole cow before Pesach and distribute the meat to yeshivah students, and his son R. Getzel and his wife Rosa continued that tradition. R. Getzel, deeply bonded to the Rebbe, stood through entire farbrengens even at an advanced age; when the sofer who wrote his new megillah remarked that it was nicer than the Rebbe's, R. Getzel brought it to the Rebbe as a gift, and the Rebbe insisted on paying a token eighteen dollars and used that megillah every year afterward. Separately, R. Yisroel, whose parents had moved to New York, joined a group of Lubavitcher shochtim in Ireland preparing meat for sale in Europe and Eretz Yisroel, and his first child, Sholom, was born there.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
169 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000637
score 0.96 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.32
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 492-494, no. 15
An unfamiliar Jew came into the shul where R. Eliyahu was; he said he was a university student who had come to see the shul, and when he said he had no place to stay R. Eliyahu invited him home, where they spoke at length about Yiddishkeit, and he ultimately became a full baal teshuva. He is A. Teitelbaum, who became a professor of mathematics in Montreal. When R. Eliyahu once brought him to the Rebbe for yechidus, the Rebbe discussed mathematics, his field, rather than the Yiddishkeit he had expected; in time he realized how important those words were, since the Rebbe had shown him that mathematics can be used to express the unity of the Creator, and he said sorrowfully that he could not recall every detail of the yechidus.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
175 wordsR. Eliyahu Akiva Lipskar
story_000674
score 0.96 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.32
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 475-476, no. 19
R. Yisroel Duchman's care for others extended to those close at hand: he organized collections that enabled countless young brides and grooms to set up their homes, and recipients could feel that he was genuinely glad to be helping them. Giving was a natural, ongoing part of his life, in the spirit of the chassidic adage that "the piece of bread that I have is yours just as much as it is mine." All year round his Shabbos table was surrounded by guests from all over the world, an effort in which his wife Rochel was his tireless partner, and for which he showed her the utmost appreciation and respect.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
152 wordsR. Yisroel Duchman
story_000653
score 0.95 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.30
As I Heard Them, Vol. 1, pp. 450-451, no. 51
The open home R. Zalman Duchman had kept in Leningrad came with him to New York: every Shabbos he and his wife hosted guests for meals, for lodging or both, sharing their minimal provisions. Long before there was any organized hospitality, he made a special effort to look after the visitors in 770, supplying them with hot drinks to warm their frigid bones — even early on Simchas Torah morning at the end of the midnight farbrengen. Each month, when his government stipend arrived, he would deposit the money with a local grocer who had a large family and needed the cash, and collect from him only what he himself needed, when he needed it.
1 min to tellvery good to tell
134 wordsR. Zalman Duchman
story_000607
score 0.93 ·
person_role=0.00 topic_theme_strength=0.00 occasion_strength=0.00 keyword_fts=0.00 semantic=0.00 farbrengen_value=0.80 length_suitability=0.25
|